


The Invisible Worm

by orchid314



Series: Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2018 [4]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Domestic Disputes, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Post-Reichenbach, Prompt Fic, Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-05 22:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15180923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orchid314/pseuds/orchid314
Summary: "O Rose thou art sick.The invisible worm,That flies in the nightIn the howling storm:Has found out thy bedOf crimson joy:And his dark secret loveDoes thy life destroy."





	The Invisible Worm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ancientreader](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancientreader/gifts).



> Written for July Writing Prompts. Prompt 5: A Deadly Simple. It's poison.
> 
> ancientreader, I hesitate to present you with this, as I think of fic gifts as lighthearted and carefree. And this story is most certainly neither. But you had asked for a further exploration of John Watson's life in the immediate aftermath of Reichenbach, so here you are. :)

Watson disembarked from the train, stepping into a grey London, the sky and Thames wan and cold. The salt air of the crossing still stuck to him. It had matted his hair and sunk into the weave of his suit. But he resisted washing it off, lest this act carry him even more surely away from the day on which he had last seen Sherlock Holmes.

He picked out Mary on the platform, her fair hair shining in the ghostly light of the station. She searched for Watson from where she stood among the waiting crowd and then began walking towards him when she saw him pause, uncertain. 

"I received the telegrams. And your letter. Did my wire reach you in Zurich? My love, my love," she whispered, wrapping an arm about his shoulders. Concern was in her voice and on her face. As the two of them made their way out onto the pavement, Mary drew him closer, slowing her pace to match his own. 

"Where is your overcoat?" 

"I don't know. I must have left it somewhere along the way."

"Let's get you home, my dear." Watson loved the strength within her small bones. 

Mary bundled him into the hansom cab, giving the driver their address. It seemed wildly improbable that an ordinary house in Paddington could exist in the same world as the nightmarish village in Switzerland. Although Watson knew it was unwise of him, he could not help superimposing the image of Holmes over Mary as she rode along next to him. Grief pierced him through at that moment, like a dagger that is concealed within a sleeve and then suddenly thrust into a beating heart. He decided he would not attempt such a thing again.

\--

How undemanding a glass of whisky was. How untroubled. Look at the way the golden light rolled over the liquid and slipped along the curve of the glass. 

A thousand times more agreeable than the letter that had arrived earlier, disturbing his afternoon. Now it was getting on towards evening. Wasn't it? And that damned letter still stared up at him. Or had it slipped to his feet? Who cared where it had gone, really? Just as long as he never had to read it again. 

_"Dr Watson, we thought you might like to know of the great kindness that your friend Mr Holmes performed for our family when we believed that the future was very black indeed...He restored our father's reputation when no one else would speak with him...But for Mr Holmes, it is safe to say that our lives would have been...Our sincerest regrets for the loss of your colleague..."_

But for Mr Holmes. But for Mr Holmes. The future was very black indeed. Our sincerest regrets for the loss of your colleague. Our sincerest regrets for the loss– Our sincerest regrets– Our sincerest– Regrets.

Mary was standing before him. Where had she come from? She sat down on the red footstool by his chair and took his free hand, rubbing her thumb along the back of it. He tried to summon enough concentration to follow the movement of it. 

"Do you want me to lay a fire for you?" The hearth was empty and swept of its ashes. Watson did not respond.

Mary appeared to consider her words before speaking again. "John. I'm not sure of the right way of saying this. But you've got to stop the drinking. It's simply poison for you," she said gently.

Watson leaned back with a grin and shook his head. She really didn't understand, did she? He bent forward as if to emphasise a point, his finger crooked at her. "I love _you_."

"Of course you do, John," Mary replied, sorrow on her face.

"Yes," he gave a swooping nod. "That's right, I do. I love _you_. And I didn't need him to...I didn't need him to..." To what? The exact word eluded him. "Well," he said decisively, giving a final nod. "I didn't need him." Mary looked down at her hands folded in her lap. Was she embarrassed for him? 

Holmes had looked at him in embarrassment, too, hadn't he? When Watson glanced up the hillside that final time. Or was it pity? Pity because his only friend could not see through his transparent ruse and had descended the mountain path, a heedless fool. Watson's face straightened, the exaltation of the whisky deserting him. What did he think on in his final moments? 

\--

Watson had just had the one drink at his club. That is, perhaps more than one. But he was trying to limit his consumption of spirits these days. Mary must have noticed something in his expression that set her on edge, however, for she turned sullen and avoided his kiss when he entered the dining room, where the table was set for supper.

"Your breath. It's vile. Go and wash before we sit down to eat."

"Mary. Don't say that."

"It's true."

"What is true?"

She stood there, shaking her head, her lips pressed together, refusing to meet his unsteady gaze.

"What is true? Tell me. Tell me, Mary!" he insisted. "What is wrong with me?

"You swore you would never become like your brother!"

"My brother? You never met my brother. What right do you have to speak of him in that way?" Why was he defending his brother? He had resented Harry for the carelessness with which he had always treated their mother. But he had loved him, too. So unpredictable, so liable to vanish without notice.

"What are you trying to do here, Mary?"

"I'm not trying to do anything, John. Let's just stop this now."

"Stop something that you began? Ah, I understand. You like to do this, don't you? Begin something and then walk away from it, making it my fault," he said. A wave of anger rose within him, just below the surface, threatening to break.

"I hardly think it's I who am starting things, when it's you who aren't able to enter your own house unless you're intoxicated." 

"Well, perhaps if I had a better home to come back to, it wouldn't be such a burden for me!" The wave broke over him. Anger at Mary for always hovering. At Holmes for sending him away.

"John, you're not like this. This isn't who you are!" Mary began to cry, tresses of her fair hair falling into her eyes.

"Because I won't do your bidding on every last point of contention between us?" Another wave of anger. At Mary for the sadness in her face. At Holmes for making him fall in love with his great grey eyes. 

"I have done everything you've asked of me, everything, from the first day of our marriage. And over these past three months, I've walked on eggshells around you so that you could get better. Managed the patients you were too ill to see, and fended off those horrible men of the Press so that you would have some peace of mind. And you call me an unfit wife?" Mary shook her head, incredulous.

"My dear Mary, did you truly think you could fight a ghost and win?" Anger at Mary for trying to help him survive this. Anger at Holmes for dying. 

She gave a sob and fled from the room. 

Oh God, Mary! His sarcasm sounded empty and pompous immediately he had said the words. He had wanted to wound someone else who was in pain, for once. An ungrateful monster who didn't deserve the name of husband. That is what he had become. Hot tears prickled behind his eyes.

\--

Watson stood at the door of his consulting room, helping the frail man to enter. Ninety-two, his granddaughter had said. She supported him on his other arm. 

Together they settled him in the most comfortable chair, and the woman showed Watson the fleshy red boil that festered on the back of the man's hand. Watson examined it closely, then went to gather the instruments he would need to lance it. He placed a lamp so that it shone squarely on the hand, and dragged over his camp chair to sit and drain it.

"I'm sorry that I made you come all the way to the surgery, Mr Jeffers, instead of going to you. But I was detained here with another patient longer than I expected, and your granddaughter told me that you wished to have this treated immediately," Watson said.

"Oh, that's perfectly fine, Dr Watson. He likes to get out and look at the world," the granddaughter answered.

"You're handling it very well, I must say. Is it painful when I touch it like this?" Watson probed the swollen surface of the boil with the lancet.

"I'm quite alright," the old man replied. "Just get on with it."

"He's gone through some difficult treatments before this, haven't you, Grandfather? He spent time in the Army in India," she informed Watson.

"Did you?" Watson asked the man. "I was in Afghanistan myself. In '79 and '80."

"Ah. So you know what you're about. Afghanistan in '80, eh? At Maiwand, were you? That was a bad business."

"Yes, it was. For a lot of fellows who were there, yes."

"You learned the trick early, then," said the man, the light of the lamp reflected in his rheumy eyes. "That's the best way of doing it." 

"I'm sorry?" 

The granddaughter shook her head, smiling politely. "He always says that once someone's dead, they've done the worst that they can do to you. Everybody is gone except for his grandchildren, you see. He's outlived everyone else."

"I suppose that's so," Watson replied. But what about the pain they leave behind, he wanted to ask.

"Give me my bowl and be done with it, I say."

The woman appeared reluctant to explain. "My grandfather has some rather funny notions about life. He's determined to give up his creature comforts and venture into the English countryside, with only a staff and a bowl to his name, to beg for alms. As he says they do in India. What do they call it there, sir?" she asked the man.

He mumbled something to himself, ignoring her.

"Well." Watson finished bandaging the treated skin. "It should leave only a faint scar, if cared for properly. I'll visit you in two days' time to see how it's healing. If there is swelling or pain before then, you'll send a note to let me know."

"We're most grateful, Dr Watson," the granddaughter said, placing the fee discreetly in the tray on the desk and hurrying to be gone.

"Not at all. Goodbye. Goodbye, Mr Jeffers," he called. "Will you consider taking me with you on your rambles, whenever you decide to go?" 

But the old man had already turned away, making his way to the door.

\-- 

Some weeks later, Watson sat on the floor of the sitting room, a tin box, of the kind used to store valuable communications, open before him. Mary was out, intending to call on friends, and would not be home until teatime.

He had gone to his barber's for the first time in a long while. It felt good to be out among people who were not his patients. He leafed through the papers that were gathered in the box. Copies of official Scotland Yard reports signed by Lestrade. The forged identification documents that Holmes had managed somewhere for their visit to the island of Uffa. Watson's own notebooks, with his observations scratched across the pages in moments of haste.

Mary didn't deserve the kind of behaviour he had shown her leading up to their ugly quarrel in the dining room. He was better than such disgraceful self-indulgence, such cruelty. He wanted to do his duty by his family and friends. But especially by his wife, who had shown him patience and such a great deal of forgiveness.

Watson thought he might gather his notes together into some semblance of order. Not for publication in the _Strand_. No, those days were over. But just. To recall. To remember a joke that Holmes used to tell because it could make Watson laugh. How Holmes would burst into a room, setting everyone into motion around him. Or the way he would sit in his armchair, those clear eyes pinning Watson down with their acute powers of concentration, as he talked over the angles of a case. 

Watson was never going to be able to escape him, was he? Even if he had wanted to. But perhaps the sorrow might be worth it, if it meant he could remember all of Holmes, not just the parts of him that had left scars behind. Perhaps. Perhaps the time had come to learn if he could live with all of it now.


End file.
